Section 69 BNS Overview
Section 69 BNS criminalises sexual intercourse obtained through deceitful means or a false promise of marriage. Here is what the law actually says, what Supreme Court rulings require, and where misuse concerns begin.
Context: Relationships and Criminal Law in India
New Delhi: When relationships collapse in India, criminal law is increasingly dragged into what are often emotional, intimate, and fact-heavy disputes. Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 is now at the centre of that battlefield. It is being projected in many places as if every failed relationship, every broken engagement, or every refusal to marry after a consensual relationship can become a criminal offence. That is not what the law says. And it is certainly not what the courts have held.
Commencement of Section 69 BNS
Section 69 came into force on 1 July 2024, after the Central Government notified the commencement of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The text of the provision is important because the entire case turns on its language, not on outrage, sympathy, or social-media distortion.
Bare Text of Section 69
The bare text says that whoever, by deceitful means or by making a promise to marry a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, has sexual intercourse with her, and such intercourse does not amount to rape, shall be punished with imprisonment up to ten years and fine.
Explanation: Deceitful Means
The Explanation expands “deceitful means” to include inducement for, or false promise of, employment or promotion, or marrying by suppressing identity.
Key Legal Elements
- The offence is not every failed promise.
- The law targets deceit at the time of inducement.
Core Legal Test: Intention at the Beginning
That phrase — “without any intention of fulfilling the same” — is the heart of the section. The legal question is not whether the parties eventually married. The legal question is whether the promise was false from the very beginning. If the intention was genuine at inception and the relationship later failed because of family opposition, caste objections, changed circumstances, incompatibility, or even cowardice, that is not automatically a Section 69 offence. Indian courts have repeated this line for years in the older “promise to marry” jurisprudence, and that doctrine continues to shape how these cases are read even after BNS.
Supreme Court Position
The Supreme Court’s consistent position under the earlier consent jurisprudence was clear: a mere breach of promise is not the same thing as a false promise. In Sonu @ Subhash Kumar v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the Court reiterated that the promise must have been false, given in bad faith, and without intention to honour it at the time it was made; it must also bear a direct nexus to the woman’s decision to engage in the sexual act. The Supreme Court again reaffirmed in a January 2025 order that merely because physical relations were established on a promise to marry, rape is not automatically made out.
Breach of Promise vs Fraudulent Promise
That is why any serious legal analysis of Section 69 must start with a distinction too many people deliberately blur: breach of promise versus fraudulent promise. A relationship can fail without the man being a criminal. Engagements break. Families interfere. Kundalis are raised later. Caste and community pressure derail marriages. Jobs shift. Immigration issues arise. One side backs out. All that may be morally ugly, but criminal liability begins only when prosecution can show that the promise was a tool of deception from day one.
Illustrative Scenarios
- Family opposition
- Caste objections
- Changed circumstances
- Incompatibility
- Withdrawal from engagement
Law vs Reality
This is also where “law” and “reality” begin to diverge.
In law, Section 69 is narrow. In reality, the allegation is easy to make, arrest pressure can be severe, reputational damage begins instantly, and the man often has to prove a negative: that he did intend marriage at the beginning. That proof battle is usually fought through chats, call records, travel history, family meetings, photographs, financial transfers, engagement discussions, prior complaints, withdrawals of complaints, and surrounding conduct.
Common Evidentiary Factors
| Type of Evidence | Examples |
|---|---|
| Digital Communication | Chats, call records |
| Conduct | Travel history, meetings, photographs |
| Financial | Transfers, shared expenses |
| Relationship Indicators | Engagement discussions, prior complaints |
The statutory wording sounds precise. The forensic reality is messy. That is why misuse concerns are not rhetorical. They arise from the structure of the allegation itself. This is an inference from how these prosecutions operate, and it is consistent with how recent High Courts are scrutinising intention, consent, and surrounding circumstances.
What Section 69 Actually Criminalises
Section 69 creates a standalone offence for sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means where the act does not amount to rape. That is a notable legislative shift.
Under the IPC era, courts frequently dealt with “false promise to marry” cases through the law of consent, rape, and “misconception of fact,” while Section 493 IPC separately dealt with cases where a woman was deceitfully made to believe she was lawfully married and then cohabited or had sexual intercourse in that belief.
Section 69 BNS now expressly codifies one branch of deceit-based sexual misconduct outside the offence of rape.
That does not mean the old Supreme Court tests became irrelevant. On the contrary, they remain indispensable because Section 69 still turns on intention, inducement, and causal connection between the representation and the sexual relationship.
The 2024 Supreme Court judgment again stated that to show consent was vitiated by misconception of fact arising from a promise to marry, two propositions must be established:
- The promise must have been false from inception
- It must have had a direct nexus to the decision to engage in the sexual act
Even though that ruling arose from the earlier legal framework, the reasoning maps directly onto Section 69’s language on deceit and false promise.
Key Legal Elements Under Section 69
| Element | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Deceitful Means | Sexual intercourse must be obtained through misrepresentation or false promise |
| False Promise | The promise (e.g., marriage) must be false from the very beginning |
| Inducement | The false promise must influence the decision to engage in the act |
| Causal Nexus | There must be a direct link between the promise and the sexual relationship |
What Courts Actually Examine
Courts do not decide these cases by slogans. They examine chronology.
- Was there a serious relationship over years?
- Were families informed?
- Was the woman independently aware of barriers to marriage?
- Did both sides continue voluntarily?
- Was there any contemporaneous material showing genuine preparation for marriage?
- Or does the record show repeated tactical assurances, calculated inducement, and stalling without any real intention to marry?
Those questions often decide the fate of a Section 69 case.
Judicial Approach And Reasoning
The courtroom language in these cases is revealing.
In the proceedings that later reached the Supreme Court in Pramod Suryabhan Pawar, the High Court had recorded:
“Though the relationship was with consent, it appears that there was a promise to marry…”
The Supreme Court, however, did not accept a simplistic equation between consent plus broken promise and criminality; it drew a stricter doctrinal line.
In the January 2025 Supreme Court order, the Court said in substance that “only because physical relations were established based on a promise to marry, it will not amount to rape.” That short formulation matters because it cuts through the most common public misconception.
And in February 2026, the Delhi High Court, while refusing bail on the facts before it, still reaffirmed the principle that “criminal law cannot be invoked merely because a relationship fails or marriage does not materialise.” The Court denied relief there because the prosecution version suggested repeated assurances that there was no impediment to marriage, including on kundali matching, and physical relations allegedly continued on that basis.
In other words, even in a prosecution-friendly order, the Court preserved the central distinction: failed relationship is one thing; deceptive assurance from inception is another.
The Real Danger: Breakup Criminalisation
This Is Where Men Need To Understand The Practical Risk
A failed relationship can now be retrospectively reframed as deception. Every promise, every affectionate message, every discussion of marriage, every family meeting, every postponement can be reinterpreted after the breakup. If the record is weak, inconsistent, or emotional, a consensual relationship can be narrated as criminal inducement.
That does not mean every complaint is false. It means the legal threshold is higher than the social narrative, but the accusation lands before the truth is judicially tested. This is a structural problem, not a rhetorical one. Recent High Court reporting around Section 69 shows courts repeatedly forced to separate consensual relationships that later turned sour from cases where a prima facie false assurance may exist.
The Kerala High Court’s 2025 Approach
The Kerala High Court’s 2025 approach is instructive. In a case involving a married complainant, the Court observed that where the complainant was already in a subsisting marriage, the applicability of Section 69 was prima facie doubtful because “there cannot be sexual intercourse with the promise of marriage” in that factual setting. Whether later courts will apply that logic identically in every case is another matter, but the order shows that factual impossibility and background circumstances matter enormously.
The Delhi High Court’s 2026 Approach
The Delhi High Court’s 2026 order, on the other hand, shows the opposite side. There, the Court found the material sufficient at the bail stage to indicate that assurances regarding removal of impediments to marriage may themselves have been deceptive. This means Section 69 is not dead on arrival. Courts will use it where the record suggests manipulation rather than genuine relationship failure.
So, Is Section 69 A “Breakup Law”?
- No. Not in law.
- But can it operate like one in practice? Yes, that risk is real.
That is the gap between text and lived reality. The section does not say “if marriage did not happen, jail follows.” The section says deception and false promise without intention to fulfil.
Yet the investigation process often begins from the complaint narrative, and the accused must then claw back the case by showing genuine intention, mutual participation, and the absence of fraudulent inducement at inception.
Read Also: High Court Decision: Maintenance Awarded, Permanent Alimony Request Denied Under Section 25
The Correct Legal Position In One Line
| Concept | Legal Position |
|---|---|
| Failure To Marry | Not The Offence |
| Actual Offence | Dishonest intention to induce sexual intercourse by a promise of marriage that was false from the start |
What Men Must Understand Immediately
- Casual assurances can become future evidence.
- Repeated postponements may raise suspicion.
- Contradictory explanations weaken defence.
- Parallel relationships can be legally risky.
- Hidden marriage or identity suppression can be prosecutable.
- False employment claims may strengthen allegations.
At the same time, if the relationship was genuinely consensual and marriage discussions were real but later failed, the defence will turn on chronology, contemporaneous communications, and proof that there was no fraudulent intent at inception. That is exactly the line the Supreme Court has insisted upon for years.
Conclusion
Section 69 BNS is neither a joke nor a shortcut to criminalise every breakup. It is a serious penal provision aimed at deception in intimate relationships.
But the law becomes dangerous when public understanding reduces it to one simplistic formula: “promise made, marriage not done, offence complete.” That formula is false.
The Real Legal Test
- Was there deceit from the beginning?
- Was the promise false when made?
- Did it directly induce the sexual relationship?
If those elements are missing, criminal law should not be used to convert the collapse of a consensual relationship into a punishable offence. If those elements are proved, Section 69 can operate with full force. That is the law. Everything else is noise.
Faq’s
Does Every Broken Promise To Marry Become A Section 69 BNS Case?
No. The prosecution must show the promise was false from the very beginning and used to induce sexual intercourse.
Is Section 69 BNS The Same As Rape?
No. The section itself says the intercourse covered by it is “not amounting to the offence of rape.”
What Is The Most Important Legal Test?
Intent at inception. A later refusal to marry is not enough by itself.
Can Courts Reject These Cases If The Relationship Was Consensual And Later Failed?
Yes. Courts have repeatedly distinguished a consensual relationship that later turned sour from a false promise made in bad faith.
Since When Is Section 69 BNS In Force?
It has been in force since 1 July 2024.
References:
- https://www.shoneekapoor.com/the-bharatiya-nyaya-sanhita-2023-pdf/
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/?s=promise+to+marry
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/supreme-court-backs-your-right-to-marry-your-loved-one-family-disagreements-noted/
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/girlfriend-arrested-498a-supreme-court/
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/madras-high-court-shocked-over-woman-misusing-pocso-act/
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/high-court-decision-maintenance-awarded-permanent-alimony-request-denied-under-section-25/
- https://matrimonialadvocates.com/orissa-high-court-lowers-maintenance-emphasizing-law-doesnt-support-highly-qualified-but-unemployed-wives/
